While I am not normally on the UN beat, I guess I sorta am on the corruption beat (actually, truth be told, my real mission is to revive critical thinking, a skill that has atrophied badly in America). I received an e-mail from a former UN staffer highlighting that, as typically is the case, when […]
Read more...Bankers ’round the world howled when the UK imposed a one-time 50% bonus supertax. The levy was meant as a shot across the bow, to warn the firms that were posting generous earnings in large measure thanks to government assistance (particularly super low interest rates) to act sensibly. The officialdom’s message was that financial firms […]
Read more...Although I read it two months ago, I haven’t made much in the way of comments on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big Too Fail, figuring the ground was well plowed by others. However, the bit that I found the most shocking has not gotten the notice it deserves, so I am writing it up now. […]
Read more...Wow, has someone declared “Forced Out CEO Tries to Salvage His Reputation Month” when I wasn’t paying attention? Or was I just not on the distribution list? Last week, we had Sandy Weill telling us how the Frankenstein of the Citigroup he created was really a fine business; the only mistake he made was pushing […]
Read more...Sandy Weill, former chief poohbah of Citigroup, tells us that he had nothing to do with the implosion of the sprawling behemoth. Everything he did was right, it was his successor, Chuck Prince, who screwed up (well maybe he was an itty bitty bit responsible by virtue of recommending Prince). Oh, and it’s Jamie Dimon […]
Read more...Well, because he is a man of probity and is writing in the UK, where the standards for libel are much lower than in the US, former Barclays CEO Martin Taylor does not use the F (fraud) word, but that is precisely the behavior he describes. I know it is fashionable to depict the investment […]
Read more...If this Wall Street Journal account is true, AIG’s general counsel should be fired for cause: Ms. Kelly, AIG’s general counsel, has been at the insurer since 2006 and was appointed vice chairman in January under former CEO Edward Liddy. Several people familiar with the matter say Ms. Kelly asked other employees to join her […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. When I read Yves Smith’s recent comments on Bank of America’s repayment of its TARP funds, I couldn’t help but think of a post I wrote six months ago called "Asymmetric information and corporate governance in bank bailouts." The gist is of the post is about the same as […]
Read more...The New York Times discusses a study (supposedly released, but the paper has yet to be posted) by corporate governance expert and Harvard Law School professor Lucien Bebchuk (along with Alma Cohen and Holger Spamann) on how much the top echelon at failed firms Bear Stearns and Lehman really suffered when their firms imploded. The […]
Read more...The theater is starting to get interesting. Here in the US we have banker pay theater masquerading as the real thing. Kenneth Feinberg, the so-called pay-czar, struggles to collect a few scalps at the handful of TARP institutions under his domain, with the ever-intransigent AIG making headlines. This of course is meant to distract attention […]
Read more...There is a simply intriguing piece up at Reuters, which may signal a shift in the media version of the zeitgeist as more details of l’affaire Benmosche leak out. By way of background, a very good article at the Financial Times underscores a pet theory of mine: that the board knew exactly what it was […]
Read more...By Marshall Auerback, an investment strategist and analyst who writes for New Deal 2.0. How appropriate that with Halloween just around the corner, the Fed and Treasury have announced a coordinated effort that will put the central bank at the forefront of pay regulation on the zombie firms now kept alive courtesy of US government […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. What is the current American economy: capitalism, socialism or fascism? Socialism Initially, it is important to note that it is not just people on the streets who are calling the Bush and Obama administration’s approach to the economic crisis “socialism”. Economists and financial experts say the same thing. For […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal reports that the pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, is going to cut executive comp at 7 TARP recipients for the 25 most highly paid employees. Does this really mean anything? The press will noise it up as significant (and some outlets will no doubt finger wag at this “interference”) but the short […]
Read more...I was on the Andrew Hall/Phibro beat for a while and must confess I dropped it in the finish-the-book crunch. I neglected to follow up on and important aspect of the story that is still germane. Readers may recall the brouhaha: Hall, a high stakes oil trader, had received nearly $100 million in 2008 at […]
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